Tag: Shark

Across the UK, many different creatures wash up on our shores. The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) is responsible for documenting stranded animals in the UK and retrieves a portion of those that strand for post-mortem examination every year. The main bulk of the project is made up of cetaceans – a group of marine mammals comprised of whales, dolphins and porpoises.

However, many people don’t realise the project also responds to strandings of sharks. Since 2007, the CSIP has recorded the stranding of basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) across the UK and more recently secured funding to expand the research to other large-bodied sharks such as porbeagles (Lamna nasus), angel sharks (Squatina squatina) and blue sharks (Prionace glauca).

WARNING: This blog contains photographs of dead stranded sharks which you may find upsetting

Sharks first evolved almost 200 million years before the dinosaurs and we’re still learning more about species past and present. Emma Bernard, Curator of Fossil Fish, joined Alistair Hendry to show off some of the Museum’s shark specimens, and to answer your questions. Find out just how huge a Megalodon tooth is, discover strange shark species and see some incredible fossil specimens including one where cartilaginous soft tissue has been preserved.

If you enjoyed this podcast please rate and review us in iTunes. To hear more about our fossil fish collection please follow @NHM_FossilFish on Twitter.

You may have seen the Museum’s work in the news recently, when our scan of a catshark helped University of Sheffield researchers understand how shark teeth evolved. In this blog, Brett Clark from the Museum’s Vertebrates Palaeobiology department shows us the method used.

Our research, led by Dr Zerina Johanson, investigates the evolution and development of teeth in jawed vertebrates – in particular, the tooth arrangement of present day sharks.